Descriptive Writing Cell

The sounds of loud, heavy boots make their way toward the door of the cell. The troop grabs Winston and Julia and a voice over the income says “Room 101”. Fear was running

Hassine begins his narrative as he is entering prison but this time as an inmate. Prior to his incarceration, Hassine was an attorney (Hassine, 2011). Even then as an attorney, the high walls of prison intimated Hassine (Hassine, 2011). As Hassine was being processed into the system, he expressed how he systematically became hopeless from the very prison structure itself as well as because of the intimidation he felt by uniforms. Prisons of the past actually had a goal to aid individuals through rehabilitation by instilling new values in order to correct the wrongs that one may have committed during their lifetime but today this is no longer true. . Hassine draws colorful depictions of how dim and unfamiliar a prison can be in which instills fear in an individual soon as he or she

searching for a new ending to my story, one where I will leave this cell

Can words change person’s thoughts from desperation, violence, to peace and normality within a dehumanizing prison? Some prisoners spending short to long term sentenced, sometimes lose themselves in a world of violence and become worse off when coming into the prison system, than how they used to be before prison life. Trying to hold on to any bit of sanity or respect for humanity becomes an everyday struggle. Sometimes the smallest thing can help prevent the feeling, of going over that edge of no return from a dreadfulness act of death.

The cell is usually six by eight feet and has a bed, sink, stool, and toilet. The room is lit by a dim light that stays on at all times and the inmate is usually fed through a slot in the door. All the inmate can do is eat, sleep, and think for days at a time. Inmates in solitary confinement are only let out to shower and occasionally exercise for an hour. Both of these activities are done separate from other inmates with a guard watching at all times. Things likes books, visitation, and phone calls are heavily restricted if allowed at all. What specifically constitutes being put into solitary confinement is at the discretion of the prison. Violence, insubordination, drug use, refusal to eat, and having contraband can all land in inmate in solitary. However, you do not have act out against prison rules to be placed in solitary. Some inmates are put there for their own protection. If an inmate is being particularly targeted by violent inmates, like a transgender man or child molester, they can be moved to solitary confinement and face the same conditions as someone who is put there for punishment. The amount of time an inmate spends in solitary is also at the discretion of the prison. Those placed into isolation cells can stay there for days or decades. In prisons with the highest form of security, called supermaxes, inmates spend their entire

I don’t know what’s real anymore. I don’t know how long I’ve even been here. All I know is that I woke up on the cement floor of this prison cell, not knowing how I got here.

I absolutely miss the outside world. When I’m in this prison you never see flowers or trees or anything until free time, so it’s enjoyable to do this once in awhile. I started to play basketball with people that I just met with in this hellhole it wasn’t the type basketball that you would expect it is a prison after all still it was enjoyable anyway. We finished our game and I was walking around I looked around and I saw a guard bashing an inmate this happens all the time here it’s why guards think they're all high and mighty I turn a blind eye. I don’t want that happening to myself so I continued to walk the other

Edward slowly stalked out of the dark, dusty cell. A guard lay motionless next to the open door, his throat slit and his face drained of color. He had been trapped in the tiny room for months and he was finally free. He inhaled deeply, taking in the ancient, musty air. The corridor that contained his cell was dark, damp, and humid. There were streaks of red along the walls, most likely due to the massive iron deposits above his underground prison. Edward took all of this in as he crept through the unlit hallway, a small, jagged piece of bloody glass in hand.

The introduction also quotes the shocking statistic of ‘141 prisoners committing suicide in 2014 the highest number ‘ever recorded’ (RAPt, 2015, pg3) and the high rate of re-offenders in order grab the attention of the reader right from the start. Also the use of ‘hostile prison environment’ (RAPt, 2015, pg3) leads the reader to actually consider what life may actually be like in prison and perhaps be more sympathetic to their cause.

Walking into the correctional facility felt as if I was walking through a college campus tour. They had dorms, they had a gym, they had a library, they had a dining hall, they had special rooms for special people. I can assure you this is not the college I would want to go to. The students here, also known as inmates, looked demoralized. While we were there, the prison was in a state of overflow. They had to many inmates that they needed to pack them like sardines in the meeting area of the dorms with bunk beds. The living conditions seemed inhumane. The campus was chained in by barbed wire and any escape would put up major signs of danger. Walking through the courtyard I felt a feeling of being trapped, and I was not even the one in chains. I never realized how terrifying prison was until this experience. The effects of isolation were clearly visible through the inmates.

It’s dark and cold, just like always. Many of the prisoners are quite used to it after serving countless years of their life in the same cell. James Clark, like many of the other inmates, is serving out his eighth year of a fifteen-year sentence and has found imprisonment to be the norm within his short life. At just twenty-six years of age, James has little hope for his future with no family or friends left outside of the prison. The only relationships he has gained are the ones with the voices coming from the other side of his prison cell. The only excitement he feels is the one hour a day when prisoners are allowed outside to see some sunlight. This excitement is short lived as they are returned to their cells to consume a meal which many

Desperately, my eyes search for light. My ears craving the sound of life, activity, even the mice scurry away from me. I am currently spending my first day in the heart of this ‘correctional facility’ as they say. I am sitting in an eternity of darkness and silence. The Warden can’t be serious about this, I’m sure any minute he;’s going to clarify what Tommy said about that hell forsaken inmate of his killing my wife. He has to believe me. After all I’ve done for him, he needs to just consider it. My lungs are craving the fresh air, the musty, damp cell is slowly suffocating me.

Remember the feeling you had when you lost sight of your mom in a sea of people in the grocery store? Imagine the feeling of being locked in a room alone for days or quite possibly years at a time with zero communication to the outside world. No access to family members or friends while life continues to move on. Thousands of United States citizens are currently experiencing this feeling of frightening isolation. These citizens are federal prisoners. At some pivotal point during a person’s life in prison, he or she involved their self in behavior not tolerated in prison consequently resulting in solitary confinement or the “prison within in the prison”. Inmates are assigned to single-window cells the size averaging that of a king-sized mattress.

It is important to note, for use throughout this paper, that although prisons strive to create a positive environment to rehabilitate offenders to return to the community, prisons are still a place of punishment and being isolated from one’s community and family and the lack of ability to make one’s own decisions can easily result in a loss of identity. Over 60 years ago, Donald Clemmer coined the term “prisonization” to refer to the extent with which inmates would conform to the “folkways, mores, customs, and general culture of the penitentiary,” (as cited in Seiter, 2014, p. 332). Clemmer also stated that the longer an inmate has been incarcerated, the deeper they will be ingrained into prison culture; the more prisonized they will be.

When we talk about “life behind bars”, it means being incarcerated in a jail or prison facility. What would happen if you have never been locked up and decide to break the law and get caught? Well, depending on how severe your crime is, you might and up in jail. Now if you commit a crime so severe that you will be convicted to serve several years in prison, that might come as a life changer. Prison is a place that keep people locked in a cell with not much room, and with another person to share your cage with. A couple gentlemen were kind enough to share their life experience in living their life behind bars, there names will be change for privacy and sensitive information they will share in this paper. They had share that most prisons cells are approximately six by eight feet. That might seem like a decent size room, but that's not if you don’t consider the room that might take when putting bunk beds and a toilet. Being locked up with someone else in a cell that small takes away your privacy. When you use the toilet, when your sleeping, and even as simple as washing your hands, your are doing it with someone being right next to you the whole time. If you can only imaging how that feels? The regrets will start and you will begin to remember how you would use the restroom at home or in a public place and had the privacy and the luxury to close the door. So the privacy is gone, now how about meals? When on the “outside” you decide what to eat, and when to eat.